Peter, the Director says:
Exhausted. I think that pretty much sums up our weekend this week. While the plan was to back-blog everything we've done up to this point, I couldn't resist at least giving my spin of the weekend since its fresh. And since I just barely put all of the clips on my computer for some serious editing/coloring/and fx-ing...
We knew this would be the roughest piece of the script to shoot. Most of the other locations were things we could find and with minimal work turn into our location sets. The room however, required more. In this particular scene there needs to be a great deal of control, which we wouldn't have in an outside (and possibly illegal location acquired through breaking and entering... just kidding. like we'd ever do that...) set.
In this particular scene, the same space moves from an abandoned apartment building into a hellish nightmare world. To achieve that end, we needed someplace that would be customizable and allowed us to move, shake, and change things as necessary. Turns out my apartment was it.
To say Will wasn't thrilled about this would be... and underestimation, simply because he is concerned about the lease and us leaving permanent marks. I guess that makes him not only the star of the film but the suits too, since he kept popping up to shake his head and be concerned about what we were doing. In his defense, we did do a great deal to that room - it looked quite different, going through three different appearances before the weekend was over. But I also have done many a murder mystery party, and eventas, as my friend Anna K. would call them, in which my parent's or roommates homes have suffered a made-over fate. And each time I'm quite conscious to do nothing permanent. While this shoot was a huge undertaking, we did it, did it well and did it with virtually no damages.
Basically the operation started when we determined that this scene was something better done before school started for us, since it would require so much. And require it did... For the entire week before hand, Amanda and I pulled 4:00 am nights collecting, building and furbishing two very different apartment rooms, filled with some of our favorite imagery from the Silent Hill games, and our own creations.
One of the biggest undertakings visiting Amanda's house where Ryan, myself and her sorted through the scads of excellent (and free!!) additions to our production. We found rusted chains for doors, the doors themselves complete with frames, barbed wire, rolls of paper destined for stained wallpaper, etc. This trip was quite advantageous, because we also discovered the perfect location (with a little work) for an upcoming scene, and a large metal disc.
What, pray tell could a large rusty metal disc weighing a hundred or so pounds be used for? What couldn't it be used for in the context of silent hill? But truthfully there was one particular use that stood out: The Seal. In the SH mythos exists a cult, which some of the story lines deal with in depth. While we don't particularly in our film, it immediately stood out as a nice ode. The screenplay I wrote definitely draws more upon the premise of Silent Hill 2, but the connection to the events of that game and the cult is concisely explained that, "...Silent Hill draws people with darkness in their hearts to it." Silent Hill may have become the way it is due a crazy religious following, but that doesn't limit the stories within it as it is an entity unto itself now. I'm getting a little caught up in SH theory, which is a blog in its own. So my reasoning for including the seal was a nice touch we figured we'd add.
The seal was a four hour paint job on the lawn, and while done by hand (we wanted a rough, crudely-drawn-with-blood look) it is actually quite accurate, even the symbols around the inner circle. If you're gonna do it, do it right. My favorite moment was when during the midst of tracing patterns I suddenly heard a "ssshhhrt" sound. With only a moment to spare, I muttered "Oh shit." Amanda, startled, asked "What?" and swung around just in time for the sprinkler to hit her in the face. We abandoned the seal and got out of the way of the sprinklers and couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous this was. We're drenched by the sprinklers, at 2 am while painting a satanic cult symbol on the lawn next to the kid playground area.
I'm pretty sure the neighbors hated us in the time proceeding this shoot. Will was constantly worried that our HOA group was going to freak out at us because our porch slowly became littered with chained doors, old chairs and furniture, giant pieces of metal, chicken wire and dyed sheets. Because of our schedules we'd start breaking apart pallets at 3 in the morning, and hammering them onto door frames. Amazingly, nobody complained.
Basically it was a lot of manhours, which Amanda and Ryan were invaluable for. They did an incredible amount of work and I appreciate their help in pulling this vision off. Doors were carted in and out, Ryan, myself and Amanda did tons of set dressing for the shots, we were still building props like the great knife (oh the shitty shitty great knife...) up until the last minute. I am quite grateful to them for their help. The room was finally pulled together Saturday afternoon, we shot the first scene late Saturday night. While the plan was to continue overhauling the room, trips to wal-mart (the great oppressor) and our exhaustion made that difficult. We decided to crash, around 4 and just do the transformed room, the "Dark Room" as we call it, the next day.
Room #207 turned out great.
Bleary-eyed, we continued work early the next morning, and it took about two hours, not to mention lots of stabbing of feet on chicken wire to accomplish. But the effect really worked, I think - it looks pretty hellish in there. With a little post work, it'll be perfect.
The shoot went swimmingly. It was fun, and worked quite well. Jackie borrowed his brothers camera and it was great to have his help being a second unit on the shoot. Will did great, especially with the turn this scene takes into a bit of action. Its nice to be sleeping with the star; he give a lot to the performance. :) Our moments with Jessica, playing the little ghostly Lanna couldn't have been creepier. She's fantastic. Amanda and Ryan pulled out some great lighting schemes and frankly I'm happy with my crew and the way it went. For the most part we're on the same page.
I have to admit that this particular shoot was also a personal pleasure for me. It was the first time Pyramid Head got to make an appearance. With some help from my cousin, Ryan, this has been a costume that I've been working on for some time now. Aside from the slapdash great knife, I think it turned out really well. I'm excited to see its presence in this film. Ryan played our version of Pyramid (based mainly on the game, but subtle movie influences are included) and he did great.
Overall it was a fun, if entirely exhausting experience. Sunday night we were all drained and couldn't do much but lay around. I'm sure the others will have more anecdotal things to relate to you - it was a bitch of a shoot and there's plenty to laugh and bitch about. This is just my general account of how things went. Hopefully you'll enjoy and look forward to seeing the film we're putting together. It ought to be great.
1 comment:
oh my gosh, what fun! I can't wait to see what this turns out like...
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